Middle East crisis live: Trump says Lebanon is ‘separate skirmish’ to Iran as Israel launches massive strikes on country | Iran

The US embassy in Baghdad warned citizens on Wednesday of further attacks after it said Iran-backed armed groups hit a diplomatic support centre at the airport.

“Iraqi terrorist militia groups aligned with Iran conducted multiple drone attacks in the vicinity of the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center and Baghdad International Airport on April 8,” the embassy said in a statement on X.

“They may intend to conduct additional terrorist attacks against US citizens and targets associated with the United States throughout Iraq,” it added, advising citizens against travelling in Iraq by plane.

A US official said Wednesday that a 10-point ceasefire plan published by Iran is not the same set of conditions that were agreed to by the White House for pausing the war.

“The document being reported by media outlets is not the working framework,” the senior official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Wednesday of the threat from “possible provocations and sabotage” to the ceasefire accord agreed by Iran and the United States.

In a message on X welcoming the last-minute accord, Erdogan said:

We hope that the ceasefire will be fully implemented on the ground without giving any opportunity for possible provocations and sabotage.

During a telephone conversation with US counterpart Donald Trump, Erdogan urged “a lasting peace agreement” with Iran, according to a statement from the Turkish presidency.

“This two-week window of opportunity, which has opened after 40 days of considerable tension and suffering for the whole world, must be used to reach a lasting peace deal,” Erdogan told Trump, the statement added.

He also called for “this process not to be compromised under any circumstances” and said Turkey would offer its full support to ensure as much.

British prime minister Keir Starmer said on Wednesday there was still a lot of work to do to reopen the strait of Hormuz, speaking during a visit to Saudi Arabia.

“We now … have a ceasefire, but there’s a lot of work to do, as you will appreciate, a lot of work to make sure that that ceasefire becomes permanent and brings about the peace that we all want to see,” he told UK and Saudi personnel during the visit.

“But also a lot of work to do in relation to the Strait of Hormuz, which has an impact everywhere across the world.”

Lebanon is not part of the two-week ceasefire deal, US president Donald Trump has told the media.

Speaking on the phone with PBS News Hour’s Liz Landers, Trump is reported to have said the Israel-Lebanon conflict is a “separate skirmish”, adding:

Yeah, they [Lebanon] were not included in the deal.

He added:

Because of Hezbollah. They were not included in the deal. That’ll get taken care of too. It’s alright.

Justin McCurry

Dozens of demonstrations have been held across Japan calling for an immediate end to the war in Iran, with protesters waving light sticks and holding banners lining packed into an area in front of the Diet building in Tokyo on Wednesday evening.

Against a musical backdrop, they chanted antiwar slogans and called on the country’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, to abide by the postwar constitution, which forbids Japan from using force as a means of settling international disputes. Many also demanded her resignation.

Fears that Takaichi, a conservative, could use her party’s huge majority in the lower house of parliament to push for constitutional reform have strengthened since the start of the war.

Last month, she turned down a request by Donald Trump to send Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Forces to the strait of Hormuz, telling him that any military involvement could violate the war-renouncing article 9 of Japan’s postwar constitution.

Trump has since criticised Japan – which is dependent on Middle East oil – and Washington’s other north-east Asian ally South Korea for not joining the conflict.

It was not immediately clear how many people had joined the protest in Tokyo, but organisers said they were hoping to exceed the 24,000 who turned out for a similar demonstration in March.

“It is always ordinary civilians who suffer in wars, so I decided to come here to make my voice heard,” said Setsuko Sasaki, who was attending her first demonstration. “I knew I would regret it if I did nothing.”

Her colleague Haruka Komori said she opposed any Japanese involvement in the US-Israeli war on Iran and voiced skepticism that the ceasefire announced on Wednesday would hold.

“The war has stirred something among Japanese people who oppose war and want to protect the constitution,” she said. “We should never get involved.”

US president Donald Trump said in-person talks with Iran will happen “very soon”, the New York Post reported today.

In an interview with the Post, Trump said vice-president JD Vance might not attend the talks due to security concerns.

The Iranian navy threatened ships attempting to pass through the strait of Hormuz without Tehran’s permission with destruction, adding that transit through the waterway remained shut, according to several shipping sources.

“Any vessel trying to travel into the sea … will be targeted and destroyed…” the message said.

Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz said the military had carried out a surprise attack on Wednesday targeting hundreds of Hezbollah members across Lebanon.

“The IDF carried out a surprise strike on hundreds of Hezbollah terrorists at command centres across Lebanon. This is the largest concentrated blow Hezbollah has suffered since Operation Beepers,” Katz said in a video statement, referring to a major 2024 operation against Hezbollah involving pager bombs.

Analysis: US haste could offer opportunity to Iran

Dan Sabbagh

Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of war, and Gen Dan Caine, the head of the US armed forces, were eager to declare victory in their press conference, arguing that Iran’s navy, air force and air defences were wiped out and its ballistic missile programme “functionally destroyed”.

To that Hegseth added that the US and Israel had “finished completely destroying Iran’s industrial base” with a final package of 800 airstrikes overnight, though Tehran retains the ability to scare oil tankers from using the strait of Hormuz.

Caine offered some statistics. The general said 450 ballistic missile storage sites were targeted, 800 drone warehouses and 90% of the country’s weapons factories, including every facility that produces Shahed one-way attack drones.

Nevertheless, Hegseth had to acknowledge that Iran retains its 440kg of highly enriched uranium, buried deep underground, though he claimed it was possible to “take it out,” in what would be a high risk operation should the peace talks break down.

Though the phrase was not used, the tone was clearly ‘mission accomplished’, though in reality it was difficult to see how the US-Israeli bombing could have gone much further without deliberately hitting civilian targets and prompting accusations of war crimes.

Nor will it have been as surgical as Hegseth and Caine implied, though Iran’s internet blackout has prevented a full picture emerging.

The haste by the US to declare an end may now give Iran’s regime an opportunity – to finally obtain sanctions relief in return for abandoning nuclear enrichment on terms similar to those nearly agreed in Geneva before the war broke out.

However, it has taken five weeks of bombing to get to this point.